Perfectly complementary jewelry has long been a staple and necessary component of the ideal 'get up'. This isn't likely to change any time soon and has led us to ask probing questions about the ethics behind the diamonds and precious metals that go into the finished product we cherish across the world. Much discussion and even a Hollywood blockbuster have raised public awareness of conflict diamonds to an all time high, but what is actually being done to ensure that progress is made towards fair and humane treatment of the workers and residents in the war torn lands of Central and Southern Africa where roughly half the world's diamonds originate?

Update: it has always been a core tenet of the EduFashion Manifesto to ask the probing and oft uncomfortable questions regarding social responsibility in modern fashion. The objective of this report is to provide an honest analysis of an important ethical issue from both the mining front line, the retailing sector (big and small), and the consumer viewpoint to bring about a holistic understanding of each stage of production, and what is being done at each point to improve conditions on the ground. This topic will be the subject of our inquiries with updates to follow in the near future. Contributors are welcome to contact us through the site.

News archive

Thursday06.08.2014

Bags, Bags, Bags: The World of Accessory Fashion

One of the stated aims of the EduFashion initiative has been to nurture meaningful change in the nature of fashion consumerism. We believe, for example, that sustainable practices in the fashion industry are a a crucial component in maintaining our industry's ability to innovate and excite. One question consumers are asking in droves is are my clothes ethical? At EduFashion we've been interested to discover to what extent bag production utilizes ethical techniques and what we can do to nurture the spirit of sustainability amongst both high end labels and fashion designers active in the bag sector. Shortly we will publish a study into the future of the bag production niche, which will be available on our website.

Update: (11/06/2014) our investigation into the future trajectory of the fashion accessory market is ongoing and the report featuring our findings and predictions will be published soon on our website, with the presentation version accessible through SlideShare. Published and now available is an extensive presentation on ethical fashion!

Thursday31.05.2013

Styling the Route Forward

As participants in the EduFashion project will know, our goal is to foster the collaborative improvement of standards across the industry. We stand for professional development and seek to nurture the shoots of creativity into fully fledged successful and responsible businesses. Dozens of wonderful firms and fashion outlets including these startups are carving out a niche in the internet space. Promising youngsters seeking to get a break in the industry have long looked for options and we feel this recent piece on funding designers sums up the job very succinctly.

Conference in Ljubljana - A moment to discuss about the future of fashion

The conference was held on thursday 2nd of June at the Faculty of Natural Science in the department of textile and fashion design of the University of Ljubljana. Speeches started by key speakers right after ten and every session had a moment of questions and answers that very often brought to discussion. Many thanx to all the participants who created a wonderful opportunity to meet colleagues from many countries and gave us the opportunity to learn new things coming from diverse contexts.

With the support of the Lifelong learning programme of the European Union

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.

This website reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Feel free to contact us for advice on securing supportive funding, if you are an aspiring fashion grad student. Grants and maintenance for furthered study are difficult to obtain, but newly launched schemes are aimed at promoting access for more people. This article on fashion student loans addresses the issue extremely well, and it's also something we strive to promote as a team and in our Ljubljana conference. As a contingency for short-term funding, we sometimes point students to 1-30 day options, such as short term borrowing, but we strongly recommend doing your own research to find out what option best suits you, now and in the future.

We are on hand to provide more specific advice if required. Financing options vary widely between geographic locations, both within Europe and beyond.

Find out about our manifesto to learn more about what we aim to encourage.